


unraveling since birth

by Tridraconeus



Series: penance [2]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, The Void, the outsider is a spooky boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-10 00:12:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11679984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tridraconeus/pseuds/Tridraconeus
Summary: The Outsider smiled, a mournful quirk of cracked and boyish lips. “You grew up torn between two worlds, drifting like a man asleep, and you never truly woke up until Daud claimed you. Your loyalty has been hard-won and often ill-placed. I wonder, why now have you placed it with Corvo?”





	unraveling since birth

**Author's Note:**

> i told myself i would write billie and the outsider before i wrote anybody else but so far we have galia, corvo, and now thomas. just take this, smack me firmly upside the head and tell me to write billie finally speaking to the outsider.  
> title from lord huron's "way out there"

Thomas woke in the Void. His bunk (a top bunk, the bottom that's normally filled with one of the Tower's servants suspiciously empty) wasn't warm from body heat as it should be. The room was  _cold_. The whole feeling of it sent alarm bells ringing in his head. Despite his misgivings Thomas made his way down, stretched sleep from his limbs, and padded noiselessly towards the door. 

He opened to a deep purple expanse. It was odd and strangely majestic, the same color as the purple lanterns at shrines he used to visit searching for charms and runes for his master. Thomas shut the door, walked back to his bunk, wrapped himself in freezing sheets and tried to go back to sleep. 

Sleep evaded him. He must have laid there for what seemed an hour before giving up and going back to the door, dressed still in his sleep-clothes; soft linen pants, no shirt. He had enough scars that most people were handily dissuaded of asking. 

Without warning, he stopped moving. It was an odd and unnatural feeling, to have been in the middle of a step and then the next heartbeat standing with his feet solidly on the ground, smoothly but without any transition. Thomas tried to step, again. His feet refused to obey him. His heart crawled to his throat and he cast his eyes around, glad that he had been allowed that at least. 

“Everett Warren. Thomas, who has no family name.” The Outsider's voice ran over Thomas' mind like the sluggish flow of the Wrenhaven, words falling stressed and unstressed. Thomas tried to speak, and found himself wordless. A man-- a boy-- materialized in front of him. Thomas recognized him quickly enough as the Outsider and tried to bow, as was polite and habit; nothing came, and instead he stood stock-still. He felt strikingly underdressed in his sleep clothes. Gooseflesh broke out on his arms and chest as the chill of the Void nipped at his bared skin, colder now with the Outsider present. The Outsider smiled, a mournful quirk of cracked and boyish lips. “You grew up torn between two worlds, drifting like a man asleep, and you never truly woke up until Daud claimed you. Your loyalty has been hard-won and often ill-placed. I wonder, why now have you placed it with Corvo?” 

Thomas tried to look away. Again, something stopped him. The goal was not to be obstinate, but to protect himself from the entity's-- deity's?-- pointed words.

“Even now, you come when Corvo calls like a well-trained hound. One day, when he calls you, you will not like the outcome.” 

He tilted his head like a rat swarm in the moment before attack, filled with inquisitive malice. Thomas felt something in his stomach squirm. He had many things he wanted to say--  _why me? Why now? Why have you come to me now, when I am happy and content? When my future looks comfortable, if not safe? Why have you come to me_? His throat felt looser and so he attempted to speak. What he said instead of anything else was “I'm not special,” sounding small and echoing in the expanse of the Void. 

“You're not,” the Outsider agreed with an indulgent smile. “But you have settled your lot in with first one of my Marked, and then with another. I'm interested in that, if not in you.” 

“Please,” Thomas said, voice low and quiet, “just let me go back to sleep.” 

The Outsider nodded and Thomas felt his lids gain impossible weight. He sank to the cold stone with the soft voice of the Outsider echoing through his mind, “Alright. Sweet dreams, Thomas.”


End file.
